Housing Quality Magazine May 2022

ISSUE 9: MAY 2022 Tony Stacey on lockdown, language and lots more Housing’s Next Generation shortlisted 20 revealed E vidence special: Refurbishment vs increased rents

Fixing the mistakes of the past How can we get repairs running like clockwork?

HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE MAY 2022

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CONTENTS

May 2022

Features 20

Fixing the mistakes of the past Repairs have become a huge issue after national media attention. But the problem is nothing new – how does the sector solve it?

26

Interview: Tony Stacey South Yorkshire Housing Association’s CEO looks at the big challenges facing the sector, from disrepair to decarbonisation.

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Successful shortlist After a rigorous judging process, we reveal the shortlisted 20 for Housing’s Next Generation 2022.

EVIDE

Evidence

26

The late st

Our latest policy analysis,

by CaCHE and HSA, looks at refurbishment vs increasing rents, renters’ rights and the importance of research.

First

Comment

Last

5 6 8 10

35 Comment: Sovereign 36 Comment: BPHA 37 Comment: MRI 38 Ombudsman corner

40 42 44 46 48

Welcome News in brief Housing by numbers A life in 15 questions

Published by HQN Rockingham House St Maurice’s Road York YO31 7JA

Get interactive

Editorial Alistair McIntosh Mark Lawrence Janis Bright Email: mark.lawrence@ hqnetwork.co.uk Tel: 07523 920010

Click

Watch

Listen

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Welcome Brief encounter

Back in the day, Camden Council was in The Sun newspaper all the time. Rightly or wrongly, we were a laughingstock to them. In the 80s, The Sun sold about four million copies a day. So, everywhere I went folk poked fun at me for working in housing at Camden. I avoided telling people what I did as a job and if pushed pretended to be something impressive like a civil engineer. Yesterday, this all came back to me.

I made the train by the skin of my teeth and sat at a table next to two gentlemen. They’d been to a conference in Manchester and were talkative. Turns out they ran cab firms in London. As soon as they discovered I was a cyclist the mickey-taking began and went on for two solid hours. It was great fun.

Then they asked me what I did for a living, apart from giving them target practice on the Uxbridge Road. That’s when I got déjà vu all over again.

As soon as I said I worked with housing associations, they were up and running. The younger man was a tenant of a major association while the older man lived next door to another of their homes. It was a repeat of the ITV coverage and Kwajo’s Twitter feed.

They were saying the same things, but with one big difference: these guys were just laughing at the association. To be fair, the quality of their humour was excellent with none of the offensive stuff you got from The Sun. Make no mistake, the cab guys are sharp. They need to be to keep the likes of Uber at bay.

If solid citizens like that hold us in contempt, we have a big problem. There’s no dressing it up. We have to change. The appalling reputation of council housing paved the way for transfers to housing

associations. So, we’ve seen this film before. Mud sticks! Somebody somewhere will start to push an alternative to associations if we keep going as we are.

And things may not get any better, if the taxi trade is anything to go by. My new friends tell me they’re cheaper and more reliable than Uber. But in the end Uber may well have the clout to win.

The proposals to beef up regulation in the Queen’s Speech might help. But they’ll only be effective if landlords wake up and the regulator comes out the traps flying. Ordinary hard-working citizens think we’re hopeless. A rocky road lies ahead of us.

Many have placed their faith in mergers as the silver bullet to cure every ail. Yet we cannot escape the fact that so many of the bigger landlords are the very ones that are in the firing line. Is size a factor?

Surely, it’s time to call for a no-holds-barred study on the cost and effectiveness of how we run housing.

And let’s get an outside expert to do the work. Such a study needs to start from the tenants up and not the boardroom down.

Finally, I must pay tribute to Steve Douglas. Over the years I went to many meetings with Steve, and he was always very sharp mentally and sartorially. And just so warm. I live near one of his hostels. It’s next to a busy junction and one night there was a car crash that upset the residents. As I passed by, I spoke to the hostel staff. They knew and loved Steve. That’s the mark of the man. We’ve lost a very fine Gooner.

Alistair McIntosh, Chief Executive, HQN

HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE MAY 2022

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News analysis by Mark Lawrence Shocking statements

Pooling resources

Is it any wonder the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire suffered after the statements we’ve seen from former ministers?

It was Lord Eric Pickles that caused most uproar, claiming he had an “extremely busy day” and urging the Inquiry to speed up, before calling the victims “nameless” and getting the number who died in the fire wrong.

Stephen Williams, a former Liberal Democrat minister, got the date of the fire wrong and said he didn’t bother to read the Lakanal House coroner’s report. Another Lord, Gavin Barwell, claimed fire safety wasn’t raised with him so therefore it wasn’t high on the agenda.

And there are other quotes that show the disrespect of former ministers but the last word should go to Karim Mussilhy, who lost his uncle in the fire.

“The government we elect, and we pay our taxes to and they can’t even get our family’s name right.

They can’t even get the name of where our families remains still live to this day right.

“And it’s sad. I’ve given up on the world.”

Are we about to see the next wave of mergers or “partnerships” as a result of the increasing demands on housing providers and the lack of funding from central government?

In the past couple of months alone, we’ve seen Optivo and Southern Housing Group say that resource issues are at the forefront of the two organisations exploring a merger.

We’ve also seen Flagship Group, bpha and Futures Housing Group looking to create a 60,000 home outfit that would “combine their expertise and reach, to improve significantly the housing experience and opportunities for local people”.

And there’s many more. And you can be sure there are discussions in other board rooms looking at those options too.

But it isn’t clear that bigger is always better. Take some of the largest housing associations in the country as an example, and you can correlate that with those

w h o’ v e been featured on ITV News with poor standard homes and stories of residents being dismissed.

And if organisations do get bigger, is it worth looking at the changes L&Q have recently made, going back to a patch-based structure to ensure they have dedicated officers on the ground and are able to build relationships with residents, be proactive with any issues that arise, and drive improvements in the organisation as a result?

The number of housing associations has decreased massively in the past decade… how many will we have by 2030?

And will we be in a better place?

Watch HQN TV for a weekly roundup of the housing news

Wrong to Buy

Ajit Wick / Shutterstock.com

On the eve of the local elections, rumours started appearing in the national newspapers that Boris Johnson was planning a resurrection of Right to Buy for housing association tenants.

The third incarnation of the idea, the Prime Minister says it is to help “generation rent” onto the property ladder, despite most of

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HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE MAY 2022

that generation living in private rented homes…

We know it also leads to a huge loss in social housing, with many homes ending up in the PRS. Previously, when asked about housing association Right to Buy Johnson said he wouldn’t want to see “housing associations deprived too rapidly of their homes”.

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Housing by numbers

tenants from across England will be on the government’s new Resident Panel

is how much unsafe and poor private rented housing costs the NHS each year (Public Accounts Committee)

decisions in the Housing Ombudsman’s online casebook

people are expected to be pushed into absolute poverty next year (Resolution Foundation)

new councils homes have been started in London since 2018 (City Hall)

of private renters relying on universal credit have an average gap of £100 a month between the amount they receive in housing cost support and the rents they pay (NRLA)

new homes the new organisation would own if the proposed merger between Optivo and Southern Housing Group goes ahead

years Housing21 are ahead of the government deadline in getting all their properties to band EPC C rating

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HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE MAY 2022

more that tenants living in ‘illegal rentals’ are paying in energy bills (Generation Rent)

drop in the number of homes built by housing associations in the year ending June 2021 (SFHA)

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simply different

A life in 15 questions Jenny Neville Group Executive Director at ForHousing

1. Tell us about your career and how you ended up in your current role My career is completely random!

I started work as soon as I turned 16 at McDonalds. I became a manager at 17 which was a great experience, although I probably worked a bit too hard as I remember falling asleep at school.

I then went to work at Asda at 18 and did a bit of everything.

I then landed a summer internship at a law firm in my second year at university. They offered me a job after I graduated as a marketing executive.

During my time there I worked with an interim finance director that was overseeing a merger with another law firm. He was a nonexecutive director for a heating and property maintenance business, and he introduced me to the Managing Director and owner.

I joined this company and took a business development role, helping to grow it significantly over a five-year period before turning my hands to delivery. I became a director at 27. I went on to help sell the firm to a blue chip business.

I then went to work for a civil engineering contractor, running their internal operations, before having a short period of selfemployment whilst I had babies!

This led to me working for a social housing consultancy, providing support and advice to registered providers. This was how I came across ForHousing, and I became part of the leadership team in September 2019.

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2. Describe yourself in three words Passionate, enthusiastic, advocate 3. Favourite place on earth?

Home (in the shower or in my PJs!).

4. What would you change about yourself?

I’m proud of who I am: my accent, my upbringing, my values.

However, I do have a tendency to want to demonstrate value for money and this can sometimes translate into an unhealthy work ethic. This is something I’m aware of and working on. I really value the great support I get from my colleagues with this.

5. Describe your home A happy and safe 1970s renovation!

Shared with my two children, James and Eleanor, my husband, Paul (“Nev”), and our dog, Bryn.

6. What makes you angry?

Intolerance, disrespect, aggression and violence.

7. Most treasured possession My family’s health. I can live without all physical possessions.

8. Best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Be true to you and believe you can!

9. If you won £1m on the Lottery, what would you spend it on?

I’d love to set up a social investment fund supporting and advising community start-ups with their business ideas and providing access to business mentoring and support from non-executive directors.

10. Biggest achievement?

People. I’m so proud of the achievements of others who I’ve supported or mentored.

11. Biggest regret?

Hmm that’s a tough one. I don’t believe in regrets. I’ve made loads of mistakes, but I’ve learned from all of them.

12. Most overused phrase?

‘Deep dive’? Or ‘cut to the chase’ (although no-one ever does!).

13. Recommend a book The Little Book of Winning by Humphrey Walters. It’s a pocket book and relates sporting success to business success which I’m a huge advocate of.

14. The best piece of television in the last 12 months?

Strictly Come Dancing – what a final! What a showcase of diversity and inclusion. I was really proud that the final included a gay man, a black woman and a deaf woman.

15. Tell us a secret about yourself People may not know that photos of my wedding were once used by the Church of England to promote church weddings!

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Yet, across the social housing sector we continue to see a slow, tentative shift towards IoT technology.

This is at the same time where disrepair claims are increasing exponentially, forcing housing providers to triple their disrepair teams just to cope. This simply isn’t sustainable.

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Internet of Things (IoT) devices are small standalone devices which can offer connectivity, control and communication capabilities to help landlords understand the interaction between the resident and their home and improve their quality of life.

One of the main benefits of IoT technology is it allows for proactive data-based decision-making. In housing, providers can quickly identify high-risk properties across their portfolio and implement effective solutions before problems escalate.

By using just a Switchee, internal conditions of a home including temperature, humidity and occupation are monitored. This data narrative is uploaded in real-time to a secure server that housing providers access at any time or feed directly into operating systems.

There are over 15,000 Switchees installed in the UK. In the last 12 months, 89.6% of connected properties have been flagged to have “medium or high” risk of mould. With this knowledge, housing providers using Switchee have fingerprinted the root cause of the mould before it gets any worse.

The seemingly impossible task of proactively monitoring thousands of properties all of a sudden becomes very possible. No longer are properties grouped in a reactive ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach that is ineffective, timely and costly. By adopting IoT technology, housing providers have tools to better understand internal property conditions, ensuring their stock is proactively well-maintained.

There are multiple benefits for residents too. IoT technology devices, such as Switchees, learn the specific heating patterns of a property and act accordingly, automatically optimising conditions within the home to match residents’ needs. At a time of energy bills rising astronomically, a saving of up to 17% for residents can be the difference between heating or eating.

For housing providers, having access to the actionable insights they’ve always wanted allows the right decisions to be made, remotely. At a time when housing providers are faced with hitting challenging financial, environmental and customer satisfaction targets the added pressure and cost of disrepair cases must be combatted. IoT is the answer: transforming the way providers manage their stock, while improving resident engagement and making properties happier homes.

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HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE MAY 2022

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EVIDENCE update The latest research and analysis – in plain English In this issue: 12 Welcome 12 Making rented housing a home 13 Opinion: Evidence versus instinct 14 Renovation project in Sweden balances cost and tenant choice

Issue 36 | May 2022

15 Do shared services improve resilience? Mixed evidence from district councils during the Covid-19 pandemic 17 Refurbish or replace? Calculating the relative costs 18 Research roundup – April 2022

Welcome How have councils’ shared services fared during the pandemic?

Previous research suggested the benefits of shared services were not all that they promised. But a new study by Thomas Elston and Germà Bel finds that shared services delivering Housing Benefit proved resilient in their performance during Covid, compared to standalone services. The researchers looked at the speed and accuracy of debt recovery on HB and offer some intriguing possibilities for the patterns found.

Whether it’s from steeply rising fuel bills or the wider issues of decarbonisation, making our homes fit for the future is the issue of the moment.

A study from Sweden looks at what happens when tenants are offered a range of improvement possibilities, linked to the renovation cost.

Meanwhile in London, researchers calculated the carbon footprint of two house types over

the whole life cycle of the building. They wanted to establish the relative emissions and costs of refurbishment or replacement. The answer: it depends how long the building is expected to last, but the results contain some surprises.

And how can tenants in the private rented sector make their housing into a home? Researcher Adriana Mihaela Soaita asked tenants from across Britain what they think should be their rights over issues such as rents, security and the ability to personalise their home. As we await a white paper on the private rented sector the study provides useful insights.

Finally, which takes precedence: the conclusions of empirical research or the instinct that comes from long experience? HQN Associate Emma Lindley argues for the personal touch in housing professionals’ dealings with customers.

Janis Bright Editor, Evidence

Making rented housing a home Research from Glasgow University looks at what tenants in the private rented sector think their rights should be in relation to their landlord.

The study, by Adriana Mihaela Soaita, asked ‘everyday activists’ across Britain for their views.

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Of the 60 people who responded, some were actively engaged in collective campaigning, while others had complained about landlords and agents, written to their MP or gone to court.

Some hadn’t been involved in activism but were

interested in it.

The responses showed people wanted the ability to make their housing into a home, for however long they chose to stay there. Some were also interested in social justice.

The top demand was rent control, with capping, freezes and reductions listed. Almost as important was the need for stability: people wanted tighter limits on eviction, and rolling or open-ended tenancies that tenants could have for the longer term, or opt out of without penalty.

Many tenants wanted more choice over the décor of their home and the ability to personalise it more. They also wanted higher standards, especially in HMOs, and minimum standards for repairs to be completed. For some, this was linked to more regulation, licensing and penalties for bad landlords. About a third of respondents wanted to be allowed to keep pets.

One participant commented: “I’m sick of living in places where every wall

is painted cream and every room has whatever carpet was cheapest at the time the landlord furnished it, in properties that haven’t seen a lick of paint in over ten years and have the same kitchen and bathroom as they had when built 30 years ago.”

Some tenants wanted a radical overhaul of the whole housing system. If landlords exit the sector, they felt, that would be a good thing – especially if the housing could be repurposed to provide good quality, affordable homes.

Moving from a right to housing to a ‘right to a home’, the author finds, will include a crucial element of self-representation for tenants.

Participants in the study strongly asserted their right and wish to be involved in policy making to bring about better futures in the sector.

Everyday activism: Private tenants demand right to home https://bit.ly/3OGHGd1

Opinion: Evidence versus instinct I’ve been a strong advocate of evidence-based decision making throughout my career, writes HQN Associate Emma Lindley. I have two degrees, I commission research, I study research and summarise it for fellow professionals. I was on the Housing Studies Association committee, you get the idea.

However, it wasn’t until recently that I was doing research to inform some of the most important decisions I needed to make in my own life. And I found myself going against research and guidelines, arguing why I should be treated differently, why the research didn’t apply to me and my circumstances. And, of course, it made me think about how many residents/tenants/ customers might feel that way about the research our strategies, policies and procedures are based on.

Research and evidence, of course, has done so much to advance and improve many aspects of life, so this isn’t a call to ignore it. However, I have learned a valuable lesson from my personal research experience: to consider the gaps in the evidence; to understand that some things can never be fully understood or tested because human beings and the world we live in is complex

and evolving; that whilst we know more than we ever have about everything, we still know so little.

And that it’s OK to consider all the evidence and then instead go with your instinct.

In our love of research, evidence, science and statistics, we’ve potentially made “instincts” a dirty word, trusting them a high-risk strategy.

But, of course, we’re all operating on instincts and gut reactions, whether we acknowledge it or not.

I’m sure we’ve all downplayed some evidence that goes against our preferred decision, and gravitated towards research that supports our case, no matter how obscure, outdated or tenuous. And of course often the evidence can cause more confusion than it solves as findings are inconclusive, as more research is needed, or because no one solution works equally for every situation.

This is where I found myself when understanding the evidence around pregnancy, birth and nurturing a newborn, and how I navigated my way through this was to listen to my instincts and my values.

Now, of course I was making a decision affecting me and my family so I also have to deal with the consequences – the same cannot be said in my working life; if the wrong strategy or policy is

HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE MAY 2022

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implemented, it doesn’t really affect my life.

So, just as I want the professionals supporting me to respect my choices and to listen to my instincts, we must recognise that those we housing professionals serve most likely want the same thing.

In my work to reduce rough sleeping, we’ve increasingly talked of “personalised housing offers” – not Housing First for everyone, not a

hostel for everyone, not a room in the PRS for everyone.

People often jump to solutions rather than spending time fully understanding a problem – what might our strategies, policies and procedures look like if they focused on individual professionals listening to individual residents to create individual solutions, of course informed by evidence and research, but not beholden to it?

Renovation project in Sweden balances cost and tenant choice A study from Sweden examines how municipal housing companies can afford to renovate homes without causing steep rent increases to tenants. The research by Kristina Mjörnell, Jenny von Platten and Kicki Björklund looked at an initiative to offer tenants choices in what improvements they wanted, for what cost.

Although the housing is owned by local councils, housing companies are required to act in a ‘businesslike’ way, ensuring they don’t run up deficits. The ‘businesslike’ requirement

JOIN NOW! The Housing Studies Association (HSA) is a UK-wide membership organisation which brings together researchers, practitioners and professionals to promote the study of housing. HSA runs a programme of events including our annual conference and our public lecture on housingrelated themes. The Association also offers: • Events grant scheme enabling members to disseminate and discuss their work, • Seminar Series grant competition • Conference bursaries to early career and/or nonwaged housing researchers and practitioners • The prestigious annual Valerie Karn prize for best paper by an early career housing researcher.

Become a member from just £25 a year and access these benefits plus reduced rates to our events.

See www.housing-studies-association.org Follow us on twitter @HSA_UK.

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HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE MAY 2022

has led to incidents where tenants were ‘displaced’ on finding they couldn’t afford the renovations to their homes. Local housing companies cannot access government funding for renovation.

In addition, companies must consult tenants on any renovations involving quality upgrades that lead to rent increases. Although tenants in theory have some influence in the negotiations, the courts have almost always ruled in favour of the landlords where disputes arose.

In this case, tenants in a socially disadvantaged area were offered a range of options on new kitchens and bathrooms. The choices went from a ‘maintenance’ option of basic improvements with an average 1.7% rent increase, to a full replacement involving an average 49% rent increase (depending on the size of the flat).

Just over half of the tenants opted for the maintenance upgrade, with the lowest cost increase. However, for the scheme to be financially viable, the company had hoped only 20% would choose this option. The remaining higher increases would cover some of the cost of the maintenance refurbishment.

In the event, some tenants moved out so empty flats were refurbished to the highest standard with the new letting covering the cost. This meant that, overall, the company could say the return on investment – though very low – was enough.

The study has implications for the way improvement of Swedish municipal housing is tackled. Much of the stock is in need of upgrading but the resultant cost to tenants can be prohibitive. Tenants in the study very much appreciated being given choices and control over the works carried out to their homes. But with low incomes many could only afford the

basic option.

If too many tenants on other schemes were to choose a basic option, schemes could become unviable. One suggestion to deal with this difficulty is to offer all tenants in low-income areas such an option, but to offer those in betteroff areas only the more extensive upgrades.

Thus costs would be balanced out across the whole stock.

Balancing social and economic sustainability in renovation with an affordable option for tenants? A pilot study from Sweden https://bit.ly/3K7Jbgu

Do shared services improve resilience? Mixed evidence from district councils during the Covid-19 pandemic I n t e r municipal collaboration, often referred to as ‘shared services,’ has gained a significant foothold in English local government over the last 10-15 years, bringing England into line with much of mainland Europe and the USA, write Thomas Elston and Germà Bel This model of jointly providing public services across two or more local jurisdictions, whether through a ‘joint committee’ or ‘lead authority’ model, or by joint commissioning of a private contractor, was primarily intended as an efficiency measure through which cash-strapped councils might attain new economies of scale during the ‘age of austerity’. Limited evidence to date unfortunately suggests that councils’

large cost-saving aspirations haven’t tended to be matched by achievements, though more research is needed.

Nonetheless, when councils and management consultants were preparing their ambitious shared service business cases, typically in the early 2010s, improved service quality and better resilience in the face of unexpected adversity were also named as advantages of the shared services approach, alongside efficiency. Since efficiency and resilience are often regarded as mutually incompatible (eg, slack resources are inefficient but protective against shocks), and given that there are few if any empirical tests of the relationship between shared services and business continuity in existing literature, we set out to investigate.

Taking the first Covid-19 lockdown during the spring of 2020 as the sudden and severe ‘adversity’ against which local government resilience was

Average value of debt recovered from Housing Benefits claimants as percentage of total debt outstanding, comparing ‘stand alone’ and collaborative provision, Q4 2018–19 to Q1 2020–21.

HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE MAY 2022

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tested, we compared levels of service disruption in collaborating and autonomous councils compared against pre-Covid performance, controlling statistically for potential alternative explanations.

Our analysis focuses on revenues and benefits departments in district councils, since a significant proportion of these (about 30% at the onset of Covid-19) are operated collaboratively. And we focus on the administration of Housing Benefit specifically, for which robust, high-frequency (monthly and quarterly) and multi-dimensional (speed, quality and cost) performance data is available.

Our study found that disruption of Housing Benefit application processing speeds during lockdown was unrelated to mode of service provision. For both shared and autonomous arrangements, performance worsened slightly during lockdown, before resuming its prepandemic trajectory over the summer of 2020.

However, collaborating councils did show less of a decline in service accuracy objectives during lockdown, measured as both the identification of new debt owing to benefit overpayments (not shown) and, particularly, the recovery of such debt from claimants (shown in the graph below).

These mixed results – no effect on speed, partial protection for accuracy – proved robust to various different econometric specifications.

There are a variety of possible explanations for this pattern.

First is that the apparent resilience in debt identification and recovery is simply an artifact of the performance differential between shared and autonomous revenues and benefits departments pre-pandemic. As the graph above indicates, and contrary to business-case predictions, shared services (grey dashed line) appear to be consistently associated with less debt recovery prior to Covid, meaning that autonomous councils simply had ‘further to fall’ during the emergency, producing their appearance of reduced resilience.

Second, and more substantively, is that highperforming organisations can fall into ‘success traps’ or ‘competency traps.’ According to existing literature on organisational resilience, the low level of challenge facing high-performing organisations during ‘normal’ times can leave them complacent and ill-equipped to deal with unexpected adversity; whereas less-successful organisations are more familiar with confronting and managing adversity in their everyday

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operations, and thus better rehearsed for managing crises.

Third is that there genuinely is something about the shared services model – be it the increase in operating scale, the balancing of peaks and troughs in demand and resourcing across different partners, the greater experience of remote working prior to Covid, or the lockin effects that arise when service operations are specified in contracts or service-level agreements – that enables collaborative arrangements to better withstand the challenges of service delivery during lockdown.

Finally, it’s interesting to consider why the partial resilience revealed in our data is concentrated on debt identification and recovery, rather than speed – recognising that bureaucracies often face a trade-off between speed and accuracy of decisions.

Studies of goal conflict suggest that organisations can cope with such split objectives by prioritising those that are most valued by their largest or loudest constituency. Benefit claimants and their landlords favour speedy service, whereas central government (which funds Housing Benefit) advocates accuracy. But perhaps Whitehall overseers pursued this agenda less forcefully during the pandemic, when many distractions arose and when preservation of life and livelihoods was clearly better served by providing speedy financial support to vulnerable populations than by auditing prior applications.

Alternatively, goal conflict can also be addressed by sequencing – addressing one goal first, and then another. Whereas poor timeliness of benefit processing cannot be subsequently rectified (once a payment is late, it’s late), poor accuracy can be corrected subsequently through greater attention to and resourcing of debt collection later in the year or in future years.

The debt will still be owed, albeit the risk of debt write-off will be higher. Future research will be able to test this ‘catch-up’ hypothesis once data on debt identification and recovery during subsequent quarters of the pandemic is released.

Overall, then, in contrast to the questionable financial benefits of shared service adoption in the English context, this study has indicated that possible advantages may be gained in terms of service resilience. We’ve just secured a research grant to replicate and expand this research agenda into additional service areas and over a longer time frame.

This blog is based on research recently published in Public Management Review.

Dr Thomas Elston is Association Professor of Public Administration at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. His research focuses on the organisation of public services, and particularly on questions of performance, resilience, reform and democratic control. His work on shared services has been published in JPART, Public Administration, Public Management Review, and Public Money & Management.

Dr Germà Bel is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Barcelona. His research deals with the reform of the public sector, with a special focus on privatization, regulation and competition. His research pays particular attention to local public services, transportation and infrastructure. His work on shared services has been published in JPART, Public Administration, Public Management Review, Local Government Studies and Urban Affairs Review.

Refurbish or replace? Calculating the relative costs The decision on whether to replace or renovate housing is complex, involving factors such as aesthetics, the popularity of the housing and costs of improvements. Increasingly, note researchers Yair Schwartz, Rokia Raslan and Dejan Mumovica, the decision will also revolve around decarbonisation.

But calculations of a building’s carbon footprint tend to look only at performance once the building is occupied. In this study the researchers attempted to include the whole life cycle of the building in their comparative assessment.

The researchers selected two types of housing in London: a mid-terrace two-storey house, and for contrast a bungalow (though they acknowledge the latter isn’t a common type in London). They compared the carbon footprint of replacement (with the same building geometry) or refurbishment to minimum current standards, based on a 60-year life of the buildings. Factored in were the carbon costs of building materials used in both options.

Although the assumptions and calculations used in the study are complex, it did produce some clear results within the parameters set.

Refurbishment of the terraced house was found to involve a carbon footprint 10% lower than replacement, and 20% lower lifecycle costs. While replacement performed well on space heating emissions (20% lower than refurbishment) its overall performance including embodied carbon was worse.

With the bungalow, again refurbishment was found to have a lower carbon footprint though replacement building models did perform better on heating emissions. In both cases, the greatest performance difference was in the shorter term of up to 20 years.

But what if buildings were expected to last longer? The team modelled to find the point at which replacement would overtake refurbishment in terms of performance. They found the reversal happened after only 80 years for the terraced house. But for the bungalow it was 250 years.

Refurbish or replace? The life cycle carbon footprint and life cycle cost of refurbished and new residential archetype buildings in London https://bit.ly/3k5toEB

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Research round-up – April 2022 This roundup by Emma Lindley provides a selection of recent research and reports across a range of strategic housing topic areas. If you’d like to suggest any research to be included in future editions, please get in touch.

Housing demand People in housing need 2021 This research by the National Housing Federation estimates the true scale of housing need, outlining: the number of people affected by housing problems; the issues they are facing (affordability, overcrowding or poor conditions); and the type of housing that would meet their needs.

The Northern housing monitor 2021 This report by the Northern Housing Consortium provides comprehensive data and analysis to better understand the North’s housing markets.

Chapters include energy efficiency, housing supply, homelessness, affordability and housing quality.

State of Ageing 2022 This report from the Centre for Ageing Better provides a comprehensive review of national data on ageing across five chapters including health, homes, work and communities. It highlights that the number of older people renting rather than owning their homes has reached an all-time high.

address significant unmet health needs in the homelessness population – specialist wound care and nurse-in-reach across hostel pathways.

Evaluation of the Institute of Global Homelessness ‘A Place to Call Home’ This international comparative study explores the approaches of the first 13 vanguard cities in their efforts to tackle street homelessness. The research found both successes and systemic failures and established a set of recommendations on what works and doesn’t work in addressing street homelessness.

Dying homeless project reveals 1,286 people experiencing homelessness died in 2021 Using data from Freedom of Information requests, the Museum of Homelessness calculated that a fatality occurred every seven hours on average in 2021, a rise of 80% in two years. Many deaths took place in unsafe, unregulated accommodation and cuts to housing, mental health and addiction services all contributed.

Evidence and society in the UK: Public perceptions and homelessness The research carried out by Ipsos UK found that homelessness is perceived as a serious problem by the public, who expect it to get worse and are supportive of a range of policies designed to address it. However, between 2020 and 2021 there was a trend towards weakening concern and sympathy towards those it affects.

Homelessness Private rented sector The effectiveness of interventions to improve the welfare of those experiencing and at risk of homelessness: An updated evidence and gap map This report presents the fourth edition of the Centre for Homelessness Impact’s Effectiveness Map, which focuses on systematic reviews and impact evaluations of homelessness interventions.

It includes 562 studies – the majority relating to health and accommodation outcomes. The key gap identified is evidence of the cost-effectiveness of interventions.

Piloting tissue viability wound care and nurse outreach with people experiencing homelessness This recorded webinar and research report shares the outcomes of two pilot projects to

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Challenges and opportunities for the private rented sector This research commissioned by the National Residential Landlords Association calculates that almost 230,000 new private rented homes are needed a year to meet government housing targets. The research also found that the supply of private rented housing in England has fallen by almost 260,000 in the last five years and forecasts a loss of a further 540,000 properties over the next ten years.

Where next for the private rented sector This report considers the past, present and possible futures of the private rented sector.

Development Funding and development of modular housing This report details findings of a survey conducted

by Trowers & Hamlins to gauge views and experience of volumetric and panelised modular construction systems. It considers motivations, funding and key challenges.

Self-build and custom housebuilding in the UK: An evidence review This report considers the current market share of self-build and custom housebuilding in the UK, including housing types and tenure, the demographic characteristics of those who selfbuild, the policy context and good practice from Europe.

Supported housing / specialised housing Evaluating the person-led transitional and strength based response This report details a two-year evaluation of the service delivered by Mayday Trust in Northampton and its partner Changing Lives in Newcastle, which work with people transitioning out of homelessness. The service uses an assetbased approach and advantaged thinking and was developed following the Wisdom from the Street project in 2011.

Is the system doing enough for women experiencing a range of disadvantage?

This report from Fulfilling Lives shares experiences and insights of women with lived experience and of practitioners working alongside them and identifies the challenges and barriers they face to accessing services. Recommendations include trauma, gender and culturally-informed service provision and housing pathways, such as the Housing First for Female Sex Workers pilot in Leeds.

System change for people experiencing multiple disadvantage This report from Fulfilling Lives synthesises two years of research and learning from services operating in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham.

It identifies five core issues in the system and makes recommendations to address them: improve access and transitions; meet people’s specific needs; deliver person-led services; invest in practitioners; and improve funding and policy.

Key learning from Fulfilling Lives in Stoke-onTrent This blog from Neil Morland and Co shares the findings of their evaluation of the Fulfilling Lives programme in Stoke-on-Trent, including the solutions developed, their effectiveness and the possible long-term systems change for the area.

Meeting the needs of specific groups

Partnerships with health and social care sector

Expanding accessing to naloxone This research from the Fulfilling Lives programme identifies the need to expand access to naloxone from substance use treatment providers to outreach and day services and supported accommodation services, as well as domestic violence services, sexual health services and food banks.

In crisis mode This article summarises the limited research supporting the use of Crisis Houses, including savings to the NHS resulting from reduced hospital stays.

Housing associations and home adaptations: Finding ways to say yes This report from Foundations covers: how adaptations are funded and delivered; how funding arrangements might be improved and the delivery process made quicker and more effective; how the moving process might be improved when adaptations aren’t the right solution; and encouraging a longer term and more strategic view of home adaptations.

How can we tackle health inequalities this time This article summarises the past, present and future of health policy to tackle health inequalities.

Evidence newsletter editor: Dr Janis Bright www.hqnetwork.co.uk email: evidence@hqnetwork.co.uk  follow us on twitter @hqn_news

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FIXING THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST Issues around standards and repairs in the sector have received more attention after falling into the national media’s spotlight.

But, as Mark Lawrence reveals, the problems are nothing new. So, why have the problems been allowed to build up, and how does the sector fix things?

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“I feel like I’ve been treated like an animal” – just one of the many quotes obtained by ITV News during its investigation into repairs and standards issues within the social housing sector.

When the pictures and videos started emerging, some in the sector reacted in shock; others minimised it as “isolated incidents” – but the reality is that issues with repairs is nothing new.

The Housing Ombudsman’s annual reports have shown long-term issues: in 2016/17, 34% of all complaints to the Ombudsman were repairs related, with the following years seeing numbers of 37%, 39%, 38% and, most recently, 35% – it’s consistently the most complained about issue.

And even the Regulator of Social Housing has known about the risks, including it in every sector risk profile since 2013.

And when you look back at some of the comments made in those sector risk profiles, they’re some of the same accusations levelled at the sector in recent years.

2013’s sector risk profile urged landlords to “balance their ambition for growth against the need to invest in existing stock” and called for boards to have up-to-date stock data.

Only a year later, the regulator went further: “Boards should ensure it [repairs and maintenance spend] doesn’t simply become the balancing figure in their business plans which will store up significant maintenance requirements that need to be met in the future.”

There are several mentions of repairs costs being a factor in viability regulation, but that threat doesn’t seem to have yielded compliance.

Interestingly, the 2015 sector risk profile shows a change in tone, pointing to the rent reduction and the need for housing organisations to reduce costs with another warning for boards to “balance the risks between short-term efficiency gains and the impact and cost of deferring current investment plans for existing stock”.

There’s shift from 2017 onwards, with the introduction of consumer regulation and the

tragedy at Grenfell Tower leading to more emphasis on safety and housing conditions.

With all these warnings from the RSH and all the data coming from the Housing Ombudsman, why was nothing ever done to turn the tide on this issue? Was it swept under the carpet? Was it the elephant in the room? Or did organisations and authorities get used to having a certain percentage of homes not in good condition?

There have been issues relating to both Brexit and Covid-19, with them both raising prices of materials and causing a shortage of labour.

At a recent Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee meeting, the Housing Ombudsman, Richard Blakeway, described current issues as a “perfect storm” – delays, building safety costs, Covid-19 and the slow introduction of new powers all being used to excuse the poor Providers’ spend on repairs performance. and maintenance But one area that cannot be used as an 2017/18 Q3 £423m excuse for the sector 2018/19 Q1 £385m is resource. As shown in the box (right), the 2018/19 Q2 £420m quarterly surveys from 2018/19 Q3 £458m the regulator show a solid spend on repairs 2018/19 Q4 £508m and maintenance over 2019/20 Q1 £430m the years.

And with repairs 2019/20 Q2 £458m now in the spotlight 2019/20 Q3 £508m and resource needing to be increased, Fiona 2019/20 Q4 £592m MacGregor, Chief Executive of the RSH, 2020/21 Q1 £242m* had a stern message 2020/21 Q2 £299m* for those who may use finances as an excuse.

2020/21 Q3 £455m “The notion that the 2020/21 Q4 £580m sector cannot deliver on building safety and stock 2021/22 Q1 £459m improvement as well as 2021/22 Q2 £479m delivering new supply appears to be an overly 2021/22 Q3 £561m stark dilemma. *Covid-19 lockdown “There’s no shortage

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of finance, and most providers have the capacity to raise more debt. Too often we see so-called ‘innovative solutions’ trying to solve a problem that doesn’t currently exist.”

So, what can be done?

According to the Housing Ombudsman, which produced a Spotlight report on repairs, most cases come from new lettings, responsibility queries, time taken and recordkeeping.

Communication is another huge friction point and the report says it’s important that it’s addressed, and that all staff involved in the repairs process are properly trained

Tenant Satisfaction Measures on repairs RP01 — Homes that do not meet the Decent Homes Standard (Proportion of homes that do not meet the Decent Homes Standard) RP02 — Repairs completed within target timescale (Proportion of (non-emergency) responsive repairs completed within the provider’s target timescale during the reporting year. For context, providers must also report their target timescales for completing (nonemergency) responsive repairs used to generate this TSM) TP02 — Satisfaction with repairs (Proportion of respondents who have received a repair in the last 12 months who report that they are very satisfied or fairly satisfied with the repairs service) TP03 — Satisfaction with time taken to complete most recent repair (Proportion of respondents who have received a repair in the last 12 months who report that they are very satisfied or fairly satisfied with the time taken to complete their most recent repair)

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and have the tools needed to provide a professional service.

The threat of more regulation also seems to be working, with many local authorities and housing associations referring themselves to the regulator for being in breach of the Home Standard. A sign of things to come, maybe, as organisations get their house in order.

The regulator also hasn’t been shy in telling providers what it, and residents, expect from repairs.

In a letter to registered providers, MacGregor said: “When we talk with tenants, they tell us that getting repairs services right and fixing problems that tenants identify is also of fundamental importance to them.

“It’s vitally important that your tenants know how to report repairs, have a range of ways to access your services, and that they have confidence that when they do so, you will take appropriate and effective action.

“Without that confidence, people are more likely to feel the need to circumvent existing systems, which can be inefficient for everyone involved. It is the job of landlords to get this right.”

And while investment has been steady on repairs, as highlighted earlier, many are calling for grant funding from government to come with the new Decent Homes Standard. Currently under review, Decent Homes looks at a range of issues, including decarbonisation.

And it’ll be this money that’s needed to fix the homes some social landlords say are too expensive to maintain and need to be demolished and rebuilt. Cases such as the Eastfields Estate, which was heavily featured in the ITV News investigation, are the product of this thinking from boards.

But will new money come with it? And what if it doesn’t? After the first phase of the review, the government concluded that the current standard was “suitable”. Wholesale changes some hoped for may not be

“The notion that the sector cannot deliver on building safety and stock improvement as well as delivering new supply appears to be an overly stark dilemma” forthcoming.

And while it could be argued that repairs and maintenance wasn’t top of the agenda while there was a government drive towards new supply, that’s certainly changed now.

Elly Hoult, Group Director of Assets and Sustainability at Notting Hill Genesis, outlines where she sees the issues: “As a sector we are facing some of the biggest challenges of our time, be that the need to invest more in our existing homes, delivering value for money, or understanding and making longterm decisions to deliver the sustainability agenda.

“Underpinning this is the constraint of an immature and insufficient supply chain and a lack of skilled labour. As well as poor data and a lack of investment in technology.

“At Notting Hill Genesis, we’re investing heavily in improving our homes to a higher standard as well as investing in improving the data that underpins our decision-making to ensure we maximise our resources and deliver high-quality homes to our residents.”

But housing providers know that it’s not just a case of looking externally. There are plenty of issues to be tackled internally too.

We hear plenty about operatives not being well briefed and therefore turning up unprepared, call centre staff not being empowered enough to make decisions

and find solutions, and easy repairs wasting operatives’ time.

Many housing providers are now starting to turn to technology to help with the first and last issue in that list, giving operatives a chance to video call the user so they can see the repair that’s needed before they go out.

Additionally, photos and videos can now be sent to operatives via an app to ensure the correct parts are brought with them to a job.

One solution by GreenSquareAccord has seen the introduction of smart collection points. In partnership with Jewson Partnership Solutions, the housing association (which itself has found issues with repairs after a merger) is giving operatives round-the-clock access to materials or tools they’ve ordered, whenever and wherever they need them, in secure containers.

The hope is that this reduces the need to go back to the warehouse, checking stock in local shops or travelling to hardware stores, resulting in repairs being achieved quicker.

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Some providers are looking at technology to help them proactively spot repairs before they become an issue for residents.

For example, smart boilers sending the organisation a message before they need a service. For legacy boilers and other repairs, the solution many are adopting is full stock condition surveys, so operatives and business plans are better placed to respond to the stock needs of the future.

Kate Lindley, Service Lead – Digital and Data at Socitm Advisory, explains why technology can be so important: “We hold so much data as a sector yet make use of only a tiny proportion of it, usually to manage risk rather than to optimise service and we need to make better use of all of this to truly shift the dial on how we operate, including making use of newer technologies like IoT and predictive repair capabilities, for example.

“The better understanding we have of the data we hold, the more we can do with it and the bigger difference we can make.

“Embracing co-design and giving tenants a truly meaningful input in how services are delivered is also critical.

“Without that, all the technology in the world won’t make any difference. This means actively listening – really listening – and involving tenants, shifting the balance of power in design from us to a collaborative approach.

“This is both a cultural and technological challenge and one that needs to be met by greater flexibility from system providers too.”

The other aspect many in housing are

“When we talk with tenants, they tell us that getting repairs services right and fixing problems that tenants identify is also of fundamental importance to them”

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looking at is the overall quality of the job being done. Some accusations with repairs have been levelled at contractors, seemingly unaccountable to the housing provider or local authority that’s appointed them.

But Paul Maghie, National New Business Director, United Living Property Services, says landlords and contractors must work better together.

“Contractors have an important role to play in advising on a strategic approach to maintenance, and to help find efficiencies and innovative solutions.

“Ideally this will be part of a long-term plan involving capitalised repairs, which can be expensed over the lifetime of an asset.

“With costs increasing for a variety of reasons, it is all the more important that landlords and contractors work together to maintain high standards whatever challenges we face.”

The other route is by going inhouse. Later in this edition, we’ve a comment piece from Mark Earle, Head of In-House Maintenance Service at bpha. He says that bringing repairs inhouse “means that when our customers report a repair, it will be undertaken by a bpha colleague, who lives by our values, and puts customer satisfaction at the heart of everything they do”.

The hope is that this improves satisfaction ratings.

We’ve seen many failings within social housing recently around repairs. But they’re not issues that cannot be fixed. And what’s even better is that we know how to fix them.

We know what residents want and what the regulator wants to see.

If the sector can make technological advances, empower its frontline staff, have detailed knowledge of the condition of its homes and engage proactively with residents, there’s no reason that the number of repairs complaints cannot reduce and the number of organisations finding themselves in difficult situations cannot also reduce.

Let’s get it done.

“We hold so much data as a sector yet make use of only a tiny proportion of it, usually to manage risk rather than to optimise service and we need to make better use of all of this to truly shift the dial on how we operate, including making use of newer technologies like IoT and predictive repair capabilities”

HQN’s top tips 1. Know your stock — make sure your stock condition survey is thorough and up to date and get assurance from independent and professionally-qualified experts. Use the information to invest in it wisely 2. Know your residents — make sure vulnerable people aren’t living in poor conditions 3. Use the data you have for business planning and to drive improvements 4. Work out a fully-costed programme for bringing homes up to scratch, stress test your business plan.

Take difficult decisions to sort problems out. Keep residents in the loop – secrecy isn’t your friend 5. You need experts: officers from Kensington and Chelsea told the Grenfell Inquiry they didn’t have access to high-calibre experts on fire safety – don’t repeat this mistake 6. Clarify roles and responsibilities — who does what and where accountability lies 7. Get on top of your procurement and contract management — engage with contractors (shared values, hold to account) 8. Co-design your repairs service with tenants and involve contractors and other suppliers when collaborating 9. Get your own ‘Kwajo’ to act as a tenant champion for repair issues. Empower your scrutiny panel to become more proactive and visit residents’ homes 10. Make booking a repair as easy as possible, at a time that suits the resident and do your best to get it right first time 11. Make better use of new technology such as home sensors to switch from responsive to predictive repairs where possible and keep track of developments 12. Listen to the frontline: the call centre and operatives know where the problems lie – talk to them 13. Clarify expectations — set the standards and KPIs, understand the customer journey and set out what good looks like 14. Communication is key — be as honest and transparent as possible with residents. Tenants should expect a seamless service so effective communication between departments and access to the right information is essential 15. Join HQN’s Asset Management Network — take advantage of peer-to-peer support, expert guidance and all the latest resources

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THE CULTURE CLUB After two years of pandemic, rising living costs, looming targets for decarbonisation and many other pressing issues, how does a housing association keep all the plates spinning? Mark Lawrence speaks to Tony Stacey, Chief Executive at South Yorkshire Housing Association, about his organisation’s approach.

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Based in the Sheffield city region with 6,000 stake in the ground that proved even more homes, from the outside it would look as if so the strength of the organisation and South Yorkshire Housing Association is your community. That culture of being there typical mid-sized housing provider. to support each other and not to play the But the reality is far from it: it has a huge hero.” variety of impressive initiatives and a strong Building on this, Tony has long complained sense of purpose in all its endeavours. about the use of the word ‘vulnerable’ within Sitting down with the chief executive, the the sector and some organisations acting as affable Tony Stacey, he instantly rejects a saviours. question on whether housing associations He adds: “For many years now we’ve are doing too much, pointing at his own resisted indulging in that narrative. We don’t organisation as an example. use the word vulnerable for our residents – “We’re the largest provider of social everyone can be vulnerable at times in their prescribing services in the north of England. lives. This sort of model of an organisation as We’ve run a randomised control trial for the a white knight to save the vulnerable tenant Department of Health called Working Win, is very paternalistic. we provide employment support for those “During Covid, when everyone was scared with mental health and uncertain, issues, and we run our best way of a programme for responding was “I’m surrounded by brilliant older people called by being SYHA. It people so why would I want Age Better (many of brought out aspects to stop them from tackling whom aren’t SYHA of our community loneliness, or tackling ill tenants) to help and services that we with loneliness. didn’t know were health, or anything else?”

“I’m surrounded there and that was by brilliant people very encouraging.” so why would I want to stop them from One of the initiatives SYHA embarked on tackling loneliness, or tackling ill health, or was peer-to-peer surveying of residents. anything else?”

It allowed the organisation to learn about And it’s that purpose, which has also been its residents through residents, creating “a lauded by the Regulator of Social Housing, different type of quality conversation”. that drives everything Tony and SYHA do.

From that, the organisation heard loud The past two years have been extremely and clear that the overriding message was challenging for many housing associations, that people were feeling isolated and lonely. but Tony believes the organisation’s cultural “In response, staff set up dances, quizzes, foundation set it up well to deal with the music, theatre, and tailored a lot of our difficulties caused by the pandemic. services to solve this,” Tony summaries.

“We were definitely in unknown territory, And with a large number of supported but I think for us, because we’re so clear housing properties, this was perhaps even about our values and culture, there was a more important to get right.

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“During Covid, when everyone was scared and uncertain, our best way of responding was by being SYHA. It brought out aspects of our community and services that we didn’t know were there and that was very encouraging” SYHA was one of the many housing associations that were created in the aftermath of Ken Loach’s 1966 film, Cathy Come Home. Years later, it’s now a founding member of the Homes for Cathy group – a coalition of housing associations committed to ending homelessness.

And with Crisis’ former CEO, Jon Sparkes, on its board, SYHA is even more determined in its mission.

Arguably, it’s the most positive landscape homelessness has had for a while. After the success of Everyone In – which showed that if the political will was there to end homelessness, it could be done – subsequent figures have shown that homelessness is falling.

Whether the rising cost of living, increasing rents and other cuts have an impact the other way is yet to be known. It’s something that Tony says he’s “cautious” about when asked if the numbers are positive.

He says: “What was very positive was Everyone In and that first weekend where local authorities, government, housing associations and voluntary organisations banded together to get decent accommodation.

“The reduction in homelessness as a result was extremely positive. I think that willingness to come up with solutions and learn from each other is really positive too.

“There are some negatives, though. A lot of social housing organisations have been applying affordability tests to new tenants and have decided that some low-income tenants don’t meet that threshold and therefore shouldn’t be housed.

“The affordability tests are excluding people and housing associations are, therefore, becoming part of the problem. If they can’t live in social housing, where can they live?

“People are still evicting people for self-interest reasons, such as rent arrears, and people are becoming homeless as a result.

“One of the calls from the Homes for Cathy group is not to evict people into homelessness. There’s still a lot to do in putting our house in order and making sure that we’re not part of the problem.”

The other big issue Tony sees hampering the progress to end homelessness is supported housing funding.

He says that the decision to “strip away funding over a number of years” has led to less associations being able to provide this vital accommodation, which can

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help many more people out of homelessness than Housing First.

If 2020 was the year the sector focused most on its pandemic response and homelessness, 2022 is turning into the year that asset management is the talk of the town.

From repairs issues and damp to decarbonisation and the retrofit challenge, there’s plenty to think about – and Tony believes the latter is the biggest challenge the sector faces.

But on the disrepair issues, which have been highlighted on social media by residents and given national airtime by ITV News, Tony says he’s “ashamed”.

He says: “Firstly, it drags down the reputation of all of us when these kinds of things happen.

“Secondly, it adds to the stigma that tenants are feeling. One of our most involved residents, Pam Hankinson, said that while it was a good thing that it shines a light on these issues, it stigmatises us even more.

“The picture that you’re painting for the public is that’s what social housing is like.

That’s now the image that forms in minds when we’re looking at social housing.”

He says housing associations that have been featured need to

“We must be honest and say that some housing associations have got too big.

These super large and over spread associations should look to themselves and demerge”

relook at the type of organisation they want to be.

“I think there are fundamental questions about how some organisations have clearly allowed their mission to drift. You look at who’s on their boards and they’re full of usually white male bankers.

“Of course, that board doesn’t see the social mission as the main reason they are there. That whole growth and merger mission has meant that the customer can get forgotten about.

“We must be honest and say that some housing associations have got too big. These super large and overspread associations should look to themselves and demerge.

“That’s not to say that all very large organisations provide a poor service, but I think it’s much more difficult if you’re too spread and lose touch with your communities.”

And for many of these homes that aren’t up to scratch from a condition point of view, it’d be easy to link to those that are performing poorly around energy efficiency.

Without government help, the targets for decarbonisation are looking impossible for many

housing associations and local authorities. Tony brands meeting them the “challenge of our time”, and has already found that under current plans it’s “impossible” for SYHA to meet the targets without going bust.

“Collectively, we don’t know the answer. The only thing we can do is be clear about the problem. I think Michael Gove has been a real success as the housing secretary and I think one of the ways in which he’s been successful is that he listens.

“He’s an intelligent man that listen and gets that pressure on organisations. The myth that the bigger you are the more you can cope with these things was shown up by the G15’s fire safety bill. It’s no easier for them than it is for the smaller or medium organisations.

It’s all relative.”

So, what has SYHA done to try and get on with the job? Firstly, it commissioned an asset management study and then sought to collaborate with other housing associations in the area to share the issue.

But the big drive from the organisation has been around co-design. Tony tells a story about SYHA going to people’s homes and offering free solar panels, with many residents telling them they aren’t getting near their roof. It forced the “The affordability organisation to rethink.

“It was a lesson for us in terms of ‘whose tests are excluding assets are they?’. They belong to the people and housing community; our tenants have much more of associations a stake in them than I do. Thinking through how we codesign solutions that work for are therefore tenants as well as working for us, is important. becoming part of “The other thing is that you don’t want to the problem. If they start doing things that are counterproductive and then have to do them all over again. If can’t live in social you go for broke with hydrogen and then that housing, where can doesn’t prove to be the right answer… where they live?” are you left?”

Tony and his team at SYHA don’t pretend to have all the answers but what they do have is a clear sense of purpose and direction. What the organisation does is rooted in ensuring it benefits residents, the organisation itself, and has an impact on different housing and health systems.

He’s proud to lead his “amazing colleagues” and it’s easy to see why: a communityfocused association with an open and inclusive culture. And, in the 50 years they’ve been an organisation, they’ve never once had a complaint upheld by the Housing Ombudsman.

Expect to see many positive case studies coming out of South Yorkshire Housing Association in the years to come.

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TOP 20 Back for its third year, our Housing’s Next Generation competition attracted entries from all over the sector, from housing associations and local authorities to supply chain partners and housing co-operatives.

The judges looked at several criteria when shortlisting, including showing leadership, having a commitment to diversity and inclusion, wanting to make the next step in their housing careers, and committing to improve social housing. Judges found it incredibly tough to shortlist down to 20.

Encouragingly, what all the entries had in common was their passion for making the sector a better place.

Every young person nominated should be extremely proud of what they’ve achieved to be recognised by their line managers and executive teams. As a congratulations, we’ve given them all access to our Next Generation Hub, an exclusive networking group for young people. They’ll also get access to topical briefings, discounted events and training, plus exclusive guest speakers.

The 20 on the following pages are our initial cohort for this year. They’ve now been set their first challenge in the form of a blog, answering one of several questions put to them by HQN CEO, Alistair McIntosh.

The judges will meet at the end of this month to pick ten of the candidates to go through to the semi-final.

The semi-final will be a presentation of five minutes centred around one idea they believe could change the sector for the better. It could be anything from a new initiative, a culture change or change in approach.

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2022 Housing’s Next Generation judges: Tanisha Rigby, Housing Next Generation 2021 finalist

Olu Olanrewaju, Senior Consultant Altair Sheron Carter, Interim Chief Executive, Eldon Housing Association Tony Stacey, CEO, South Yorkshire Housing Association

Alistair McIntosh, HQN CEO

Rosalynn Funnell, 24 Tenancy Involvement Officer Wokingham Borough Council Emily Batchford, 24 Environmental Sustainability Officer Stonewater Shaleen Brown, 24 Customer Engagement Lead Orbit Group

Hanifa BlakemoreRazaq, 28 Communities Project Manager Clarion

Emma Gilbank, 28 Service Manager: Sustainability and Climate Change Connect Housing

Gift Ngubane, 27 Employment Support Advisor Abri

Emily Elsworth, 21 Asset Compliance Team Leader Longhurst Group Isobel Emery, 29 Senior Customer Service Advisor Golding Homes Gemma Brookes, 28 Project Surveyor NetZero Carbon Team Orbit Group Jasmine Tansur, 29 Resident Liaison Officer PA Housing

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Saarah Bunglawala, 24 Diversity Business Partner PA Housing Kemba Mitchell, 24 Project Coordinator South Yorkshire Housing Association Naomi Mooney, 25 Development Manager Stonewater Tania Bedi, 23 Customer Services Graduate Trainee Network Homes Tom Leon-Grimes, 25 Service Development Manager Orbit Group Alice Goodall, 28 Communications Officer Futures Housing Group Meg Norrey, 23 Early Tenancy Money Advisor Weaver Vale Housing Trust

Amy Greenwood, 29 Customer Safety Coordinator Stockport Homes Group

Taylor Skirda, 26 Culture, Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator Ottawa Community Housing Corporation Stephanie Ward, 29 Electrician PA Housing

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ADVERTORIAL

A step towards improving repairs and maintenance

By Craig Oosthuizen, Head of Client Operations, M3 In 2019, Ms P complained to her local council about “extreme mould” throughout her property. The council undertook temporary work to address water ingress from the roof, but the work was sub-standard and water damage continued. A number of other repair issues were also waiting to be resolved.

The tenant had been raising these issues since 2012, and the council had agreed in 2015 that the roof needed to be replaced. The Housing Ombudsman found severe maladministration in the council’s failure to deal with the roof which negatively affected the tenant’s health. This was one of eight severe maladministration findings published by the Ombudsman so far that year, with seven relating to repairs and maintenance.

Social landlords typically spend around one third of their operational budget on repairs and maintenance. According to analysis, this amounted to £5.4bn in 2020/21. On average, over 10% of repairs are not fixed first time, with a repair operative having to go back out.

The issues experienced by Ms P aren’t just about getting it right first time. There were clearly issues with the council’s complaints process. However, getting repairs right first time will lead to happier tenants. With the regulator set to introduce tenant satisfaction measures, this should be a concern for social landlords.

Not having to resend operatives to the same job also saves time and money, increasing the number of jobs that can be completed within a given period.

It seems easier said than done, but there are a couple of steps landlords can take to get the repair done right first time. The starting point is to ensure you’re quantifying what works are being carried out. With over 14,000 unique items, the M3NHF Schedule of Rates contains an inclusive list of all the most commonly needed repairs. It can be used to order repairs, control costs and build a historical database so you can track the most common repairs. You can then plan and have the necessary parts and other resources to deal with repairs as they arise.

It’s also imperative that repair takers accurately diagnose repairs and understand what questions to ask. This helps identify the right type of operative and tools needed before someone undertakes the work. M3’s repairs diagnostics solution, M3Central, enables tenants to describe a repair clearly, so landlords don’t need to waste time and resources. According to William Wiggins from Newark and Sherwood District Council, it’s “a critical tool in efficiently diagnosing repairs, a must have for any modern Housing Repairs Organisation”.

About M3 Founded in 2004, M3 provides a unique combination of expertise in social housing, surveying and software.

 020 8274 4000  sales@m3h.co.uk  m3h.co.uk

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ADVERTORIAL

A holistic approach to repairs and maintenance How United Living are leading the way in delivering repairs and maintenance that make a difference At United Living Property Services, we believe in combining technical excellence with social value. We’re a trusted partner to social registered landlords and local authorities because they know we share their commitment to meeting their social, economic and environmental goals. Indeed, we make those goals our own. ESG concerns aren’t an optional add-on for United Living, but are woven into everything we do.

This means our expertise in repairs and maintenance is ultimately in the service of those who live in the buildings we look after. We want those residents to enjoy safe, clean and green living and leisure spaces.

So, we’re dedicated to working behind the scenes to maintain their homes with a minimum of fuss and expense – but what does this mean in practice?

We respond to thousands of calls each year, including emergency repair requests and works order queries. It’s a huge responsibility and one we take seriously. But we don’t treat emergency repairs in isolation from regular maintenance: the two issues are intimately connected.

All buildings deteriorate over time, and unforeseen problems are inevitable. Prompt and high-quality repairs will be needed in the life of any building. But those buildings that are well looked after, with a long-term maintenance strategy in place, will require fewer emergency repairs and incur fewer unexpected costs. Equally, repairs that are carried out with a long-term strategy in mind – taking advantage of opportunities to combine works, for example – are far more effective than ‘sticking plaster’ solutions. We see such short-term solutions as a missed opportunity to improve the overall condition of a building for the long term.

Our approach is very different. A core area of our expertise lies in delivering planned and reactive maintenance together as part of a holistic approach. To this end, we use the latest technology and stateof-the-art engineering equipment and techniques. Our fully-integrated IT system allows us to deliver bespoke solutions, drawing on detailed records about our clients’ assets and their condition.

All this is combined with a flexible and caring attitude to ensure our clients and their customers receive the highest levels of service. From client liaison to technical delivery to working with partner contractors and other stakeholders – above all residents – our teams are fully committed to delivering results promptly and satisfactorily.

That’s why we’re the partner of choice for clients across the UK, including leading social housing providers Clarion Housing, Southern Housing Group and a2dominion, as well as local authorities such as Reading Council, Swansea Council and City of Westminster Council.     

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info@unitedliving.co.uk www.unitedliving.co.uk United Living Group @unitedlivinggrp united_living_group

COMMENT

Why investing and taking aftercare seriously can prevent a whole host of future issues

Connie Garrett, Aftersales Manager, Sovereign

Having started my housing career as a homelessness support worker, supporting men and women with mental health, drug and alcohol problems, I saw first hand what the offer of a permanent home meant and how life changing it could be – it’s no different for home owners.

I knew how tough the challenges of everyday life could be and the way they interacted with us didn’t need to be another challenge.

With poor-quality new builds featuring regularly in the news, it’s increasingly more important for us to invest in our homes now – by doing so we’re also ensuring the quality of the lives for our residents and the future sustainability of our communities.

The whole sector has been affected by Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, all of which have created huge challenges for the construction industry, supply chains and, ultimately, delivery of aftercare for the customer.

Our customers are the ones who really feel the impact of this. What was once a quick fix to repair a drafty door can now take weeks, and often mean higher bills through lost heat for the customer.

Several well-known builders have suffered real reputational damage with their build-fast-and-moveon approach to customer service. This is something I’ve seen time and time again in my role.

The smallest of defects can become a huge cause of stress to someone if developers have a lack of care or slapdash approach to their customer service. It not only causes reputational damage but also the trust that the customer has with us as their landlord.

Sovereign’s Home and Place Standard informs how we’ll invest to build homes now that are fit for the future. By having more control over the specification

a n d quality of the homes we build means we’ll be able to ensure a better quality for all our customers.

Better data about our homes helps to inform our decisions. If we know which parts of the home continually fail, this helps us make wiser choices to invest in something more robust the next time.

We know the homes we offer must go beyond affordable rent, and as our development and investment strategy sees more homes delivered on the open market we’ll need to be competitive – this includes providing a great customer experience, whether it’s through renting, shared ownership or buying with us.

By investing in quality aftercare we’re strengthening the foundations of those building blocks – break the trust and it’s difficult to repair. This relationship is our opportunity to prove we can get it right, make it easy and allow our customers to trust us for years to come.

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COMMENT

Why we’re bringing our repairs in-house Mark Earle, Head of In-House Maintenance Service, bpha

Trust lies at the heart of everything we do. When people meet our team in the field or see our vans in the communities we serve, we want them to feel assured that their jobs and the homes they live in are in safe hands.

We’ve consulted with both colleagues and customers to ensure our new livery and uniforms make the right statements about the reliability and integrity of bpha and the work we do.

At bpha we’re in the process of bringing our repairs This open, collaborative approach underlines how and maintenance service in-house. We believe doing we’re working with all stakeholders, partners and so will improve the repairs and maintenance service customers to deliver the right services for people. for our customers.

Following the appointment of Totalmobile as One of the things I love about being part of bpha supplier of our new repairs and maintenance job is that we don’t just work by our values. We live management system, we’ll be engaging with various by them. Across the colleagues across the business, colleagues business to ensure are passionate about that our technology “Bringing our repairs and improving the customer meets the challenge maintenance service in-house means experience and helping of providing repairs that when our customers report a people to love where service excellence to repair, it’ll be undertaken by a bpha they live. our customers and The main engagement colleague, who lives by our values, and improves the way we most customers have with puts customer satisfaction at the heart communicate with us is through our them.

And we’ve of everything they do” repairs service. We selected Travis Perkins as manage over 19,000 our buildings merchant, homes. Keeping them all safe, warm and in great providing the materials and products we need to repair has a huge impact on how customers rate their undertake repairs. overall experience when dealing with bpha.

We’ve recently appointed a commercial manager Bringing our repairs and maintenance service inand are currently recruiting an operational mobilisation house means that when our customers report a manager, who will strengthen our mobilisation team repair, it’ll be undertaken by a bpha colleague, who and ensure we’re ready for the go live this autumn. lives by our values, and puts customer satisfaction at This is a big project. And a the heart of everything they do. complex one. But we know During the last 12 months, we’ve consulted this will positively with customers extensively. We asked about their transform the experience and how they wanted it to improve. In customer and designing our service, we’re incorporating feedback colleague to ensure it delivers what our customers have told us experience they’d like. massively.

Over the next few months, we’ll be ordering the fleet, tools, equipment, and IT that our in-house team will need to enable them to work effectively and efficiently.

This includes building on the strength of the bpha brand to make sure our customers instantly recognise our trade colleagues in the field.

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COMMENT

Addressing repairs challenges with better tech Colin Judd, Solutions Architect, MRI Software

to the schedule every single day. When they can’t be completed, they roll over, ensuring organisations get the best from an operative’s time.

2022 and beyond

After 20 years working in the sector, I’m looking at what providers can adopt to improve repairs and future gazing at the technology set to shake up the sector.

In the early days, the technology wasn’t up to scratch. Unthinkable things could happen, like if a device battery ran down then all the software would be deleted! It wasn’t fun.

We don’t have to worry about those problems anymore. However, if technology isn’t up to scratch, providers risk inefficiencies and under-serving residents.

Technology has evolved to a point where organisations can implement real-time tracking of operatives – and this should be utilised to ensure that they can harness maximum efficiencies for all involved.

This isn’t about keeping tabs. What’s important is when an emergency is flagged, for example, the best person can get to that job.

At MRI Software we’ve introduced an ‘Uber-style’ service for repairs. This software notifies residents when an operative sets out, tracks them and establishes a real-time ETA; resident user experience can improve dramatically.

There are operational benefits too. Direct contact and real-time tracking between operatives and residents reduce costly ‘no-accesses’, saving an estimated £80140 each time.

The ability to integrate software with applications has revolutionised how services are delivered. It means optimum routes can be generated, giving operatives an improved work experience and offering a better service to residents.

I’ve also seen scheduling become much more intuitive over the past few years. Solutions can shuffle jobs with a 28-day priority window for those that don’t need an appointment. Often, these are the jobs repairing communal areas and can have a dramatic effect on the people that live there.

Good solutions can present these non-urgent jobs

Internet of Things People keep talking about the Internet of Things. This will soon become a reality; new boilers will all have these technologies built into them. These machines should be able to flag faults to repairs software, as well as the parts that are needed to fix it, driving up firsttime fix rates.

Fuel poverty Fuel poverty is a primary concern. Beyond the qualityof-life costs for residents, the inability to heat a home adequately will have a detrimental effect on them structurally. There are going to be serious issues.

The high cost of heating a home needs attention. It’s outside of provider or resident control. If you have to choose, you’re going to give the kids a jumper and put food on the table. These issues are going to result in increased repairs costs for providers and poorer living conditions for residents – a ‘lose-lose’ situation.

Remote repairs We’re currently looking at augmented reality solutions to understand how we can make this part of our existing repairs offering. This is the type of technology currently being utilised to conduct surgery across borders.

Remote repairs Remote repairs are going to become a reality for easy-to-fix problems. Augmented reality tools will allow operatives to talk residents through the remedy process remotely and in real-time, saving operatives time and providers a good sum of money. Using this technology, lesser skilled operatives can also receive training on the job, with expert operatives at hand remotely to guide them through the repair.

There are multiple challenges that our sector has to overcome. Over the last 20 years, I’ve seen how technology has helped us face these and I believe we can continue to rise to challenges to achieve the best outcomes for both providers and residents.

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Ombudsman Corner 38

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By Richard Blakeway, the Housing Ombudsman

Residents shouldn’t face a postcode lottery when making a complaint.

This means our Complaint Handling Code performs a crucial role in driving consistent, fairer and higher standards across the social housing sector. It’s also an important tool for landlords to assess whether they’re delivering a positive complaint handling culture. This culture should promote learning and empower complaint handling teams to ensure they have the resources and respect to do the job, as well as raising expectations of them.

In March, we published an updated Code based on the feedback we’d received, as well as our own experience.

The fundamentals remain unchanged.

However, the new Code has strengthened in three specific areas. It’s increased the obligations on landlords to raise awareness of the complaints process and of our service. It sets out good practice for a member of the governing body to be identified as having lead responsibility for complaints and for all landlord staff to have a standard objective related to effective complaint handling. It also reinforces the importance of learning from complaints by being explicit that the self-assessment should be completed as an annual exercise.

Here are six things you need to know.

1. The language has changed to be clear where something is mandatory and where landlords are to use their discretion to achieve the best possible results.

2. To improve access, the revised Code encourages landlords to provide as many routes as possible through which complaints can be raised, as well as

a new requirement for landlords to publicise the Code.

3. Where landlords need to extend the response time to a complaint this has to be done in agreement with the resident and, if it cannot be agreed, the resident is given our details so that the landlord’s actions can be assessed and appropriate action taken to progress the complaint where necessary.

4. The Code is clear that the response to a formal complaint must be provided at the point the answer to the complaint is known, not when the outstanding issues, such as repairs or decorating, are completed. This affords the resident the right to challenge those solutions if they do not feel that they’re the right ones, before they’re undertaken.

5. It raises the bar on learning from complaints. To further strengthen the learning aspects of the Code, we’ve now asked landlords to appoint a governing body member to have lead responsibility for complaints to support a positive complaints culture.

6. The revised Code seeks to strengthen the focus on positive cultures even further. It asks landlords to set out standard objectives for employees to encourage collaborative working both within and across teams, as well as to encourage a collective responsibility towards managing and resolving complaints without apportioning blame.

Finally, landlords should self-assess and make any necessary changes to their complaint handling practices by October, as well as publish the outcome of that assessment.

ADVERTORIAL

Property MOT® A compliance framework for asset management With rising costs across a range of sectors including energy and repairs, there’s never been a better time to consider SMART solutions for this post-pandemic industry sector.

A certified assessment of tenanted properties is gathering pace, with a number of housing clients seeing a clear difference with a Property MOT® certifying the health of their properties. In addition, the process serves to enhance the education of those working to resolve reports of damp, condensation and mould.

With a demonstrable outcome for solving disrepair complaints, the unique framework offers a uniform understanding of current and future stock conditions whilst upholding better decision-making, with noted issues resulting in a reduced ‘re-spend’ by landlords.

David Bly, Director of Cornerstone Professional Services (UK) Ltd, the organisation behind the Property MOT®, explains why social housing providers are requesting further details and sample MOT surveys aligned to this unique framework: “The MOT survey demonstrates a user-friendly yet detailed algorithmic assessment of a structure alongside elements controlling the internal atmosphere, with each assessment aligned to a respective property and its residents upholding bespoke outcomes. This approach aligns to the housing stock within the UK as a whole whereby a myriad of stock types, ages and periods, plus geographical location and orientation, can and do affect the structural behaviour alongside the internal atmospheric management.”

“In addition, recognising the net-zero journey is upon us, the assessment of each property includes air permeability and appropriate measures to manage heating and ventilation. That said, the current drive to ‘Insulate Britain’ cannot be a broad-brush affair – rather, an individual assessment to determine efficacy and anticipated outcomes such that, with a vastly differing structural type and construction age perspective across the UK, in the absence of specific assessment criteria prior to installation, we will have to consider ‘Ventilating Britain’.”

Recent MOT surveys have indicated an overriding healthy structural condition with anomalies mainly linked to ventilation aspects. This has enabled the client to focus on the highlighted issues and where repairs are indeed required, cost effective solutions are in place. In addition, where ventilation measures are deemed ‘adequate’, pertinent and recognisable guidance has been made available to the residents.

With SMART Knowledge embedded in the MOT application process, the best way to understand more about this opportunity and how your team could be more informed is by requesting complimentary MOT surveys for properties of your choice. This limited opportunity will allow you to learn more of your stock and how it’s being utilised.

 023 9200 1374  propertymot@cornerstone-ltd.co.uk  www.propertymot.uk

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In the frame

 Spreading sunshine Halton Housing  Free football Buckinghamshire Council In partnership with the local Football Association, the council’s smokefree sidelines campaign encourages smokers watching local youth football to either refrain from smoking during the match or to move away from the sidelines.

The organisation’s Social Impact and Engagement Team supported pupils from year six at Woodside Primary school to pot sunflowers which will be delivered to residents in the area.

 Neighbourhood knitting St Leger Homes of Doncaster Members of Woodlands New Estate Tenants’ Club brightened up their neighbourhood by creating a knitted Humpty Dumpty to sit on top of their local post box.

 Digital delight City of Edinburgh Council Pupils at a local primary school celebrate using their new iPads as part of a 40,000 digital device roll out.

 Hedgehog highway Beyond Housing Beyond Housing is preparing to welcome new residents – both human and animal – to its latest development in New Marske, which features a hedgehog highway.

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 Luther’s love Watford Community Gateway

 Holiday hunt Greatwell Homes

The organisation held a community day where local residents explored the new hub, feasted on the wonderful treats from local chefs and chatted to former footballer Luther Blissett, who the hub is named after.

The housing association had an egg-cellent time at its Easter event to celebrate the launch of Live Greatwell. Not only did customers get free rides, but kids had a hoppin’ great time in the Easter Egg Hunt!

 Tidy tots Slough Borough Council A year-five class from Pippins Primary School litter picked Pippins Park as part of the #GreatBritishSpringClean – picking up 15 full bags!

 Pill party Alliance Homes The housing association got involved with the local Pill’s Party in the Park, celebrating all the new murals, artwork and flowers with some music, stalls and even a nerf shooting gallery!

 Providing packages Harlow Council The council delivered welcome bags to local charity Integration Support Services. The bags will help families coming to the area who’ve been affected by the events in Ukraine.

If you’d like to be featured In the Frame, please email your pictures to mark.lawrence@hqnetwork.co.uk

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Resident’s view Going ‘above and beyond’ to help customers

By Mary Telford, Resident, Karbon Homes

With close to 30,000 homes across the North East and Yorkshire, Karbon Homes’ in-house repairs and maintenance service carried out 83,000 repairs.

As I have a number of health issues which need to be taken into consideration when having work carried out, my granddaughter, Ashleigh, is listed on my account as a key contact.

Living in a one-bed bungalow in County Before the work started, Karbon let Durham, I’ve nothing but praise for the Ashleigh and I know it’d create lots of dust repairs service, with every trade colleague which could aggravate my breathing. They who’s visited my home being excellent and worked with us to book it in at a time when going above and beyond Ashleigh was available to make sure work is to take me out, which I “I don’t have a bad done right and that I’m thought was very caring. happy.

I really felt they were word to say about the From the gas engineer putting me and my whole process.

I felt who came to service the needs first. really cared for right boiler, to the electrician Whilst out, we were who came to fix my preparing ourselves the way through” lights, I’ve never had a for the cleaning we’d bad experience. I’m so need to do when grateful that they make me feel comfortable we got back. But in fact we needn’t and are respectful of my home. have worried as the place was left as Recently I had an issue with my lighting immaculate as it could’ve been. and had an electrician come out. He not To have a landlord genuinely only got it sorted but explained what had wanting to help get problems caused the problem just in case it happened sorted is amazing. I feel again, which I thought was really kind. really valued as I was with my daughter at the time and a customer. he explained to both of us in layman’s terms. It wasn’t at all patronising and I really appreciated it.

I moved into my home just over a year ago and my first major interaction with the service came when a pipe burst in the kitchen.

I was panicking like mad as it had made quite a mess but everything was dealt with fantastically. I don’t have a bad word to say about the whole process. I felt really cared for right the way through.

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ADVERTORIAL

Streamline your tenancy onboarding with digital processes One of the biggest sector challenges since Covid-19 is signing up new residents into available homes. Even with the reduction in the pandemic and associated measures, many landlords’ offices remain closed to customers, with many services being delivered remotely with distributed workforces.

Before Covid, new tenants might meet at the landlord’s office to begin the process, bringing their documentation with them for validation – with return visits required to return completed forms, provide proofs of income, view properties, sign the tenancy agreement, taking the initial rent payment or setting up Direct Debits, and so on.

This could be a laborious process and so, even before Covid, many RSLs were exploring more efficient ways of onboarding that minimised in-person touch-points, with the aim of saving prospective tenants time and travel costs, and eliminating cybersecurity and data protection risks (such as sending identity documents via email).

So, how do you onboard a new resident whilst minimising traditional face-to-face meetings?

By digitalising the entire tenant onboarding process through VerseOne process automation software, the journey can be delivered effectively and securely through a web application. Every step, including verification of documents, signing tenancy agreements and setting up payments can be done digitally – with your teams and the tenant working collaboratively.

Furthermore, tenants can even be automatically registered and verified for your customer portal – using solution synergies to grow your digitally engaged audience.

For RSLs this is a game-changer: they can house families, reduce void times, whilst offering better customer service, and ensure tenants are digitally comfortable tenants from day one.

Benefits to tenants • Reduce travel costs (and time) • Convenient online and available 24x7x365 on any device • Secure – no sending of personal information via email • Sign tenancy agreements online (or in-person, if appropriate) • Rent payments and Direct Debits can be online.

Benefits to landlords • Low touch / social distancing respectful • Supports current distributed workforce practice • Efficiency – less time spent for you and the tenant • Secure data – documents collected can be used within other systems • Safe to staff • Process is defined and structured but can be changed in the future • Integration to inform data-driven decision-making – process optimisation – move the process on when the tenancy is setup internally.

Case study • A VerseOne customer in South London has signed up over 450 families digitally over the last two years, throughout the lockdowns and social distancing restrictions • They’ve reduced their average days to let to 30 days • Only one new tenant couldn’t use their digital process.

If you’d like to see the Infographic or talk to the housing team, please visit https://solutions.verseone. com/social-housing-digital-tenancy-onboarding

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A day in the life of...

Laura Elliott Retrofit project manager Northampton Partnership Homes

Employee since: November 2016 Location, location, location: Northampton Previous Employment: Director, Artspace Charity

5:30

Me time I like to get up earlier than I need to and before the rest of the family gets up. I enjoy the calm of being able to read a book or get some ‘life admin’ done.

8:30

Straight to site First stop, I call into the site office for our whole house retrofit project. This programme will deliver approximately £8m of retrofit works in 2021/22 as a result of the recent Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund award and double that in 2022/23.

9:00

Cuppa and a chat Next, I get out for a walkabout and door-knock to find out how the work is going from the residents’ perspective. This is the highlight of my day. I love being able to resolve minor issues there and then and to hear all the positive feedback we’re getting about the works.

12:30

Tailored works Now, I need to visit specific properties with the architect. As part of the whole house retrofit process, an individual design is required for each property.

13:30

Refuel for the afternoon I like to grab a bite to eat locally with the design team and our sustainability manager.

14:00

Back to the office I need to write up notes and minutes from the morning while it’s all fresh in my mind. I also make sure that diary notes on the housing system are entered so that it’s clear to other colleagues what’s happening on the project.

16:00

Clearing the inbox This is the point in my day where I make sure that I’ve replied to everyone who needs information from me and chased those people who I need to send information.

17:00

What’s for dinner?

My perfect day Time to head home and hear how my little boy’s day at school has gone.

I’m lucky enough to live with a chef, so there’s always something A lazy start, drinking a delicious on the table, featuring homegrown food from our bucketload of Earl Grey tea with allotment. poached eggs and spinach. This would be slowly followed by a long 22:00 Winding down walk or a freshwater swim. And if Bedtime is always welcome in our house. The best way for me we’re talking about a truly perfect to switch off after a busy day is curling up with a good book. I’m day, I’d end up at a beer festival currently reading The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel. But if I full of lovely people, great could recommend the perfect book for fellow housing professionals, brews and live music.

I’d say to seek out Estates by Lynsey Hanley. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to work in housing and it still inspires me to get up for work every day.

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Event calendar 2022

May and June 2022 Good governance series

11 May 2022 Damp and mould – a call for a zerotolerance approach

11 May 2022 Changes to the Building Regulations to help deliver net zero

12 May 2022 A new approach to income collection

18 - 19 May 2022 Housing Management Network annual conference 2022 – the year of housing management

25 May - 27 September 2022 How to write a housing strategy

27 May 2022 Housing Ombudsman workshop: Learning from complaints

14 June 2022 The Leasehold Summit 2022

23June 2022 The future of resident engagement – how do we get it right in 2022?

12, 14 and 20 July 2022 The HQN annual conference 2022: Past, present and future Our annual conference is one of the highlights of the housing calendar and this year promises to be extra special as we will be celebrating HQN’s 25th anniversary.

Visit hqnetwork.co.uk/events for information and to book your place Thanks to our partners

Fact or fiction: Inspiring policies The Conservative Party has lovingly tended to the benighted folk of the United Kingdom for the last 12 years.

Keen to ignite aspiration in all aspects of public life, the canny Tories have noticed that lots of people live in homes, so haven’t been shy in coming up with lots of awesome policies in that arena. Here are five of them – well, four, as one’s a lie!

1. More money, more rent

2. A little appetiser…

The Tories then had another terrific idea: build 200,000 homes and sell them at a 20% discount to young people desperately trying to get on the housing ladder. Astonishingly, the plot somehow went horribly wrong, as it was abandoned in 2020 without a single home being built – BUT £173m was spent on land to site the fantasy properties.

With the Conservatives famously being the party of thrift and sound budgetary planning, the fiscal flop is a small blemish on an otherwise spotless economic record.

3. Any spares?

The Tories and their Lib Dem enablers finally wrested the country from Labour’s paws in 2010, and soon set about a series of extremely popular and inspirational policies, often

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5. Homes zones

festooned upon the population via the lips of political rock stars such as Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Freud. One of these cherished strategies was the so-called bedroom tax, which saw social housing tenants deemed to be under-occupying their properties docked up to 25% of their housing benefit. Naysayers and victims alike complained that the scheme was ill-judged, unfair, ridiculous and cruel. But the government stuck to its guns, and, despite the odd courtroom battle, the policy continues to bring equilibrium to Britain’s spare rooms to this day.

4. Tenant cashback In 2011, the Tories first of many housing ministers, Grant Shapps (or whatever he’s called) announced plans to offer tenants “a Cashback deal worth billions to take control of their own homes”.

Shapps chirped that the UK’s social landlords spend an average of £1,000 per property annually fixing problems (though current evidence suggests in many cases significantly less than that’s being spent), so what if tenants did the

Though he lasted only three weeks in the job, particularly transient housing minister Mark Jones revealed plans for his “homes zones” during 2014’s Conservative Party conference in Swindon.

The scheme involved earmarking certain areas for the exclusive use of housing social tenants. Literally physically ringfenced with vast fences, these zones would contain homes, factories, and basic medical and educational facilities.

Jones boasted that his blueprints for an encampment in Cumbria would “provide suitable living conditions for 55 million unskilled workers in a square mile of currently infertile wasteland”. The internees were also to be furnished with “a communal television, a soccer pitch, a chips and beer hall, and dormitories” to help them relax during fortnightly periods of “reflection and introspection that will offer spiritual release while rewarding a growing sense of self-worth”. Sadly for Jones, then communities secretary Eric Pickles slammed the idea, complaining that keeping the inhabitants within the boundaries of their zones would be “too costly”. Jones was shuffled out of the cabinet two weeks later.

Fiction: 5. Homes Zones

In the days before Brexit, Covid and Will Smith slapping that bloke, the Tories cooked up a fine plan to charge council housing tenants earning £30,000 a year market or near market rents. Amazingly, the idea was very poorly thought through. Critics pointed out that social landlords didn’t have the power to compel tenants into revealing their salaries, while others noted that the scheme could encourage some to reduce hours and so on to avoid hitting the threshold. Gavin Barwell, the then housing minister, quietly binned the plan in late 2016.

jobs themselves and then claimed it back; for example, by carrying out their own DIY, or commissioning it locally and pocketing any savings made? Yet another amazing idea, virtually impervious to disaster.

New website coming soon Loading...

With a fresh new look and easy-to-navigate pages, our new and improved website is designed to be an interactive community hub containing all the latest sector news, exclusive member resources and a bespoke ‘MyHQN’ members area which will keep you connected to all the latest and relevant network information.

Features of the new website include: The ‘MyHQN’ members area giving you the ability to upload your own network content to our site and interact with people across the sector

Streamlined design and navigation

S implified training and events booking system

Enhanced support and easier searching.

Resources library

Watch this space – hqnetwork.co.uk

HQN’s Cost of Repairs Analysis Model (CRAM) Want to know more about your repair costs?

Are you getting value for money from your repairs and maintenance service?

How do you compare with others?

Are there ways of reducing your repairs costs?

Let HQN’s model analyse your repairs and maintenance costs for you.

Suitable for all housing associations, local authorities and ALMOs regardless of size.

For further information please contact Anna Pattison on 01904 557197 or anna.pattison@hqnetwork.co.uk

hqnetwork.co.uk/consultancy

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The last word How knowledge and accountability meant we were able to tackle our Covid repairs backlog

By Daniel Miller, Head of Repairs and Maintenance, Eastlight Community Homes

“We temporarily moved staff who usually work elsewhere within Eastlight to focus on delivering the repairs recovery plan.

The observations they made during those months led to service improvements”

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The Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 had a huge impact on housing repairs services up and down the country.

By December 2021, our 12,500-home organisation had 3,000 jobs outstanding – significantly more than the 2,200 we’d usually expect in the run up to Christmas.

We hadn’t been able to deliver the services our customers expected of us due to the pandemic, so we implemented a repairs recovery plan, which ran between November 2021 and January 2022.

We were able to reduce the backlog by more than 1,000 jobs, despite the spread of the Omicron variant and the Christmas period having the potential to slow progress down.

We were not only able to reduce the number of repairs waiting to be completed: we also upheld an excellent service, maintaining 4.7 out of 5 customer satisfaction levels throughout the repairs recovery plan.

On 31 January we closed our repairs recovery plan at 1,958 repairs, which exceeded our target of 2,200.

We temporarily moved staff who usually work elsewhere within Eastlight to focus on delivering the repairs recovery plan. The observations they made during those months led to service improvements. As a result, we’ve seen uplift in the proportion of “Right First Time” repairs, which increased from 75% to 86% between January and March.

Eastlight’s teams are all accountable to residents; however, in repairs, we’re very aware our work shapes residents’ opinions of the organisation.

Being directly answerable to our residents drove the success of our repairs recovery plan.

Eastlight’s Home MOT is where members of the repairs team visit a resident’s home and systematically tick off items on our online MOT worksheets.

The team complete small jobs there and then, but if they need to return to fix a problem, they set a date and time with the customer before they leave.

This more proactive approach to repairs and maintenance has dramatically reduced maintenance callouts, with numbers falling by 50% in some areas, pre-Covid.

It has improved relationships with customers and led to us holding more information about our homes, which enable us to tackle the Covidcaused repairs backlog more efficiently.

Not one of us could have prepared for a global pandemic, but at Eastlight we’ve been able to see how dealing with problems before they become emergencies and being driven by doing the right thing by our residents, has meant we’ve been able to get back on track quickly.

Providing a strong foundation for life We build, manage and look after homes for people across the North.

And then we go further, we give them the strong foundations they need to crack on with life.

www.karbonhomes.co.uk

An HQN Accreditation mark is a visible sign that your organisation not only meets or exceeds good practice standards but is also proud to offer a best-in-class service to its tenants and residents.

HQN Accredit covers the following areas: • Repairs and • Leasehold Maintenance Management • DLO/ Contractor • Estate Management • MIST – Maximising • Lettings Income; Sustaining • Gas Tenancies To find out more...

Email: anna.pattison@hqnetwork.co.uk

Visit: hqnetwork.co.uk/accreditation

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Upcoming repairs and maintenance training

Providing you with the tools to succeed HQN’s committed to raising standards in the sector – let HQN training help upskill your repairs staff.

HQN has an outstanding track record of helping organisations achieve real and lasting performance improvements.

Repairs in the social housing sector keep hitting the media. We know how important this service is and how difficult it can be to get it right. Staff play a vital role in this. That’s why we have a range of training covering all aspects of repairs – for the repairs specialists as well as non-technical staff.

“Nancy was really amazing.

Very lively and knowledgeable session. A lot of information to consider and apply to work.

Thank you!”

(Repairs training)

Project management bootcamp – how to deliver a successful project 10 May 2022 Repairs diagnostic questioning – a masterclass for non-technical housing officers 17 May 2022 Condensation, damp and mould – causes, cures and the courts 24 May 2022 Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 and housing disrepair 26 May 2022 Health and safety - the five fundamentals 26 May 2022 Property and site inspection for non-technical staff 31 May 2022 Unlocking construction – basic techniques for nontechnical staff 1 June 2022 The basics of plumbing, waste and drainage for non-technical staff 8 June 2022 An introduction to HHSRS and housing standards 17 June 2022 Common building defects and failures for technical and non-technical staff 23 June 2022 How to develop from manager to leader 30 June 2022

For more information or to get an in-house quote, please contact training@hqnetwork.co.uk, call 01904 557150 or visit hqnetwork.co.uk/training

To book your place visit hqnetwork.co.uk/training